Bookshare Ireland is a free service that provides students with dyslexia, blindness, vision impairment or other reading barriers with access to a vast collection of digital books. Students can customise their reading experience to suit their individual needs, whether for school, college, work or for the joy of reading.
Benefits of Bookshare.ie:
- Customisable Text: Adjust the font size, style and background colour to make reading easier.
- Read-Aloud Option: Books can be read aloud using text-to-speech technology, helping with decoding and fluency.
- Wide Selection: Access thousands of digital books across different reading levels, including popular fiction and textbooks.
How to Get Started:
- Sign Up: Visit Bookshare.ie and create an account for your child using a email set up in their name. Be sure to use Bookshare.ie, the Irish version, not the American version (bookshare.org).
- Verification: As part of the verification process, Bookshare.ie will provide you with a document to be completed by your child’s school. This document will confirm that your child has a specific learning difficulty such as dyslexia. Once you have this document, please email it to eolas@realtnamara.ie to be verified by the relevant teacher.
- Choosing a Download Format: When setting up your child’s account, you will be asked to select a preferred download format. The DAISY format is a good option to choose for now, as it includes both text and audio. However, the preferred format can be changed at any time if needed.
Parental Supervision:
For children under the age of 18, it is recommended that a parent, guardian or teacher assist with the search and download of books to ensure that age-appropriate content is accessed.